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SO DAMN MUCH MONEY – THE TRIUMPH OF LOBBYING AND THE CORROSION OF AMERICAN GOVERNMENT

BY ROBERT G. KAISER

The startling story of the monumental growth of lob¬bying in Washington, D.C., and how it undermines effective government and pollute our politics.

A true insider, Robert G. Kaiser has monitored American politics for The Washington Post for nearly half a century. In this sometimes shocking and always riveting book, he explains how and why, over the last four decades, Washington became a dysfunctional cap¬ital. At the heart of his story is money—money made by special interests using campaign contributions and lobbyists to influence government decisions, and money demanded by congressional candidates to pay for their increasingly expensive campaigns, which can cost a staggering sum. In 1974, the average winning campaign for the Senate cost $437,000; by 2006, that number had grown to $7.92 million. The cost of win¬ning House campaigns grew comparably: $56,500 in 1974, $1.3 million in 2006.

Politicians' need for money and the willingness, even eagerness, of special interests and lobbyists to provide it explain much of what has gone wrong in Washington. They have created a mutually beneficial, mutually reinforcing relationship between special interests and elected representatives, and they have created a new class in Washington, wealthy lobbyists whose careers often begin in public service. Kaiser shows us how behavior by public officials that was once considered corrupt or improper became common¬place, how special interests became the principal funders of elections, and how our biggest national problems—health care, global warming, and the loom¬ing crises of Medicare and Social Security, among oth¬ers—have been ignored as a result.

Kaiser illuminates this progression through the saga of Gerald S. J. Cassidy, a Jay Gatsby for modern Washington. Cassidy came to Washington in 1969 as an idealistic young lawyer determined to help feed the hungry. Over the course of thirty years, he built one of the city's largest and most profitable lobbying firms and accumulated a personal fortune of more than $100 million. Cassidy's story provides an unprecedented view of lobbying from within the belly of the beast.

A timely and tremendously important book that finally explains how Washington really works today, and why it works so badly.

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CONTENTS:

A Scandal for Our Time

Looking Down on the Capitol

The Art of Self-Invention

A Washington That Worked

A New Kind of Business

Corrupt or Correct?

Earmarks Become Routine

A Great Awakening

A Marriage Unravels

"Would That Be Proper? "

A Money Machine

Disaster Averted

Tricks of the Lobbying Trade

The New Technology of Politics

Disorder in the House

Becoming a Conglomerate

Influencing Policy for Profit

Public Service, Private Rewards

Radical Ends, Radical Means

Cash Cow on the Potomac

Elections Bought and Sold

Politics, Then Government

Hard Times

A Corroded Culture

Acknowledgments

Notes

Index

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